An example of two components expressed in UML 2.0. The checkout component, responsible for facilitating the customer's order, requires the card processing component to charge the customer's credit/debit card (functionality that the latter provides).
Component-based software engineering (CBSE), also called component-based development (CBD), is a style of software engineering that aims to build software out of loosely-coupled, modular components. It emphasizes the separation of concerns among different parts of a software system.
An individual software component is a software package, a web service, a web resource, or a module that encapsulates a set of related functions or data.
Components communicate with each other via interfaces. Each component provides an interface (called a provided interface) through which other components can use it. When a component uses another component's interface, that interface is called a used interface.
In the UML illustrations in this article, provided interfaces are represented by lollipop-symbols, while used interfaces are represented by open socket symbols.
A simple example of several software components - pictured within a hypothetical holiday-reservation system represented in UML 2.0.
Components must be substitutable, meaning that a component must be replaceable by another one having the same interfaces without breaking the rest of the system.
Component-based usability testing should be considered when software components directly interact with users.
Components should be:
fully documented
thoroughly tested
robust - with comprehensive input-validity checking
able to pass back appropriate error messages or return codes
History
The idea that software should be componentized - built from prefabricated components - first became prominent with Douglas McIlroy's address at the NATO conference on software engineering in Garmisch, Germany , 1968, titled Mass Produced Software Components.[1] The conference set out to counter the so-called software crisis. McIlroy's subsequent inclusion of pipes and filters into the Unixoperating system was the first implementation of an infrastructure for this idea.
Brad Cox of Stepstone largely defined the modern concept of a software component.[2] He called them Software ICs and set out to create an infrastructure and market for these components by inventing the Objective-C programming language. (He summarizes this view in his book Object-Oriented Programming - An Evolutionary Approach 1986.)
The software components are used in two different contexts and two kinds: i) using components as parts to build a single executable, or ii) each executable is treated as a component in a distributed environment, where components collaborate with each other using internet or intranet communication protocols for IPC (Inter Process Communications). The above belongs to former kind, while the below belongs to later kind.
IBM led the path with their System Object Model (SOM) in the early 1990s. As a reaction, Microsoft paved the way for actual deployment of component software with Object linking and embedding (OLE) and Component Object Model (COM).[3] As of 2010[update] many successful software component models exist.
Architecture
A computer running several software components is often called an application server. This combination of application servers and software components is usually called distributed computing. Typical real-world application of this is in, e.g., financial applications or business software.
Component models
A component model is a specification of components' properties.[4]
AXCIOMA (the component framework for distributed, real-time, and embedded systems) by Remedy IT
COHORTE the cross-platform runtime for executing and managing robust and reliable distributed Service-oriented Component-based applications, by isandlaTech
Generic programming emphasizes separation of algorithms from data representation
Interface description languages (IDLs)
Open Service Interface Definitions (OSIDs)
Part of both COM and CORBA
Platform-Independent Component Modeling Language
SIDL - Scientific Interface Definition Language
Part of the Babel Scientific Programming Language Interoperability System (SIDL and Babel are core technologies of the CCA and the SciDAC TASCS Center - see above.)
↑ 4.04.1Crnkovic, I.; Sentilles, S.; Vulgarakis, A.; Chaudron, M. R. V. (2011). "A Classification Framework for Software Component Models". IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering37 (5): 593–615. doi:10.1109/TSE.2010.83.
↑Lau, Kung-Kiu; Velasco Elizondo, Perla; Wang, Zheng (2005). "Exogenous Connectors for Software Components". in Heineman, George T.; Crnkovic, Ivica; Schmidt, Heinz W. et al. (in en). Component-Based Software Engineering. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 3489. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 90–106. doi:10.1007/11424529_7. ISBN9783540320494.
↑MASH defines assets as people, property and information and management as monitoring, control and configuration. Presented at the 2013 IEEE IoT conference in Mountain View MASH includes a full IDE, Android client and runtime. "MASH YouTube channel"
↑A component-oriented approach is an ideal way to handle the diversity of software in consumer electronics. The Koala model, used for embedded software in TV sets, allows late binding of reusable components with no
additional overhead. [1]
↑Component model for embedded devices like TV developed by Philips based on paper by van Ommering, R.: Koala, a Component Model for Consumer
Electronics Product Software [2]
↑Larsen, John (2021). React Hooks in Action With Suspense and Concurrent Mode. Manning. ISBN978-1720043997.
George T. Heineman, William T. Councill (2001). Component-Based Software Engineering: Putting the Pieces Together. Addison-Wesley Professional, Reading 2001 ISBN0-201-70485-4